Paul Ryan

Perhaps the most vocal anti-government deficit hawk in recent memory, Catholic U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican Party's budget guru, introduced new bills that would at almost $100 billion to the federal deficit over 10 years.

Food stamps feed one in five children in the United States, and the Republicans, led by Catholic Republican Congressman and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, his former presidential running mate, Mitt Romney, and Catholic Republican House Speaker John Boehner want to decimate the food stamps program with immoral and inhumane budget cuts. Time will tell if Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rick Santorum and Marco Rubio support such hard-hearted class warfare policies.

The $1.1 trillion federal spending bill approved by Congress avoided a repeat of last year's government shutdown and largely kept in place social services spending, especially programs benefiting low-income families.

Beyond the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, the future is less certain, however, as Republican victories in the November elections gave the party control of both chambers on Capitol Hill. With the new leaders come new plans on limiting federal spending and reducing the country's $17.6-trillion debt.

Charles Kenny at Businessweek has written an important essay that debunks Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan's and his fellow Republicans' notion that private charity, especially churches, need to bear the brunt of financing the care of the poor. Like Ryan's budget, the math doesn't add up. Private charity cannot supplant federal and state programs that create the safety net for the poor. It's that simple.

House Republican Congressman Paul Ryan, a Catholic, has recently discovered poverty and has vowed to do something about it. He reintroduced a couple of modest ideas that might help the poor. Some progressive Catholics did their best to applaud Ryan's nascent initiatives. Others just rolled our eyes at the hollowness and political expediency of Ryan's actions.

The final two-plus years of the Obama presidency look to be a torturous obstacle course with little or nothing to be accomplished and repeated attempts to roll back those legislative pieces that are already in place. The 2014 election appears bleak for Democrats, who may even lose control of the Senate. The resulting Congress is almost certain to be even more recalcitrant in working with President Barack Obama than the current one.